Jackets play the playoff waiting game

The game the St. Augustine Yellow Jackets aren't playing tonight may haunt them Sunday, when state playoff brackets are announced.

Then again, it may not.

In all probability -- that is, if District 4-3A champion Baker County wins tonight -- Baker County will claim the No. 1 seed over SAHS in the eight-team bracket for Region 2-3A.

It will be irrelevant that at 8-1, the Jackets have the highest winning percentage in the region -- Baker County will be 8-2 if, as expected, the Wildcats beat 5-4 West Nassau -- or that St. Augustine at least appears to have played a stronger schedule than Baker County.

It's victory total, not winning percentage, that determines playoff seeding and when two teams have the same number of victories, the first tiebreaker is the opponents' victory total. The significance of being the No. 1 seed is the assurance, as long as the one-seed keeps winning, of playing at home through the first three rounds of the playoffs.

And this is where St. Augustine pays for not having a 10th regular-season game.

Heading into tonight, St. Augustine's nine opponents have 32 victories. Baker County's 10 opponents have won 34 games. (The third district champion in this region, Daytona Beach Seabreeze, takes a 6-2 record into tonight's game with Mainland and thus has no shot at the top seed.)

Tonight's results could shuffle things just enough to edge the Jackets into the No. 1 seed, but don't count on it.

And don't worry about it.

SAHS coach Joey Wiles isn't worried about it. Had it been that big a deal, he'd have worked a little harder to find a 10th game after the original opponent, Satellite, backed out.

Wiles' options, once Satellite bailed, were picking up the likes of Lake City Columbia or Trinity Christian -- on the heels of a rough-and-tumble Palatka game, mind you -- or taking the night off the Friday before the playoffs start.

The Jackets are taking the night off -- the players, that is. Wiles and one group of SAHS assistants will be in Jacksonville, scouting likely first-round opponent Lee. Other coaches will scout another potential foe, Port Orange Atlantic, which plays at DeLand. (Atlantic is in as an at-large team only if it beats DeLand and both Bartram Trail and Palatka lose tonight. Don't count on that.)

The players also had Monday off after last Friday's district championship-clinching 21-7 win over Palatka. They practice approximately an hour and 45 minutes Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, compared to the normal two and a half hours.

Wednesday, the Jackets worked on defensing Lee's wing T. Thursday, they practiced against Atlantic's I-formation. They also spent the week addressing other issues as the postseason unfolds.

"The offensive line worked a lot on down blocks. They haven't been very good," Wiles said. "We've had a lot of ball handling drills. We put too many balls on the ground. We've worked with our two-minute offense."

An open week also helps injured players heal. The best news in that area is that linebacker Chris Hayward is just fine despite a jarring collision that forced him out near the end of the Palatka game.

"Chris is fine. The doctors cleared him," Wiles said. "He collided with one of the backs and had his bell rung. He had been sick all day and school and that had something to do with it."

All well and good that Hayward is better and the Jackets have extra preparation time, but won't a lower seed mean a tougher playoff path?

Not necessarily.

Baker County's second-round "reward" for the No. 1 seed may be the winner of what promises to be a brutal first-rounder between two district runnersup, Bradford and Titusville Astronaut. In that scenario, St. Augustine wouldn't see Bradford or Astronaut before the third round -- and at home, Baker County having been eliminated.

Do know that much could change by the time the brackets come out Sunday, even if there aren't any upsets.

If Palatka and Bartram Trail win tonight, they grab the at-large berths -- and two at-large teams out of the same district scramble the pre-designed bracket considerably, as no two teams from the same district can open the playoffs against one another. That means, -- in addition to respecting the seeding as much as possible -- St. Augustine, Bradford, Bartram and Palatka must be kept away from one another.

It's tricky.

And in this tricky playoff world, it's probably best not to obsess on who your team should and shouldn't be playing in the first round. Instead, take heed of Al Davis' words: